I like the styling that makes it look like
We’re “slave free” chocolate
That was intentional, because they can’t guarantee that it wasn’t actually made by slaves.
Or made from slaves.
We’re “more or less slave free as long we don’t ask our suppliers too many questions” chocolate!
To be fair, they usually have auditors, but the farms get so much advanced notice they can clean up their act on the day of
I’m sure that was deliberate
wink wink
It’s because even brands that go out of their way trying to exclude farms that use slave labor can’t guarantee that every farm they work with is slave free, because a lot of the time the slaves themselves lie about their info out of fear of losing the income or provisions, so it takes A LOT relative to how much checking can be afforded for each individual farm to 100% guarantee “these guys aren’t using slaves”
Those pesky slaves
When it comes to chocolate the slaves in question are generally children who are made to work by their parents. The parents teach their kids to lie about their age.
What’s with the quotation marks? Is the wink implied?
The region of Africa where the cocoa plant is harvested is so chaotic that it’s impossible to say 100% that no slaves, children, or even child slaves are used in the farming process. There’s a documentary that follows UN workers onto farms and they ask the kids working how old they are and every single one says 21+ when they don’t even look like they’re 16, and the reporter is like “it’s impossible to tell” since most of these people were born out in a village and don’t get a birth certificate until they are around 10+ years old, and then it’s just the doctor asking them how old they are and when is their birthday.
don’t get a birth certificate until they are around 10+ years old, and then it’s just the doctor asking them how old they are and when is their birthday.
So you’re telling me all I need to do to get a fake identity is go to a doctor in a village and Africa and pay them to write a birth certificate for me?
So what the hell is stopping people from simply growing it in other countries, like the U.S.?
Climate mostly.
Can’t it be grown in Florida? Or Puerto Rico?
Hawaii and Puerto Rico are the only suitable regions. And they do, just nowhere near enough, nor could they. They are too small.
Here is an article about chocolate grown on Hawaii. https://www.chocolateuniversityonline.com/growing-cacao-on-american-soil/
Yup, too small.
Greenhouses then.
Likely technically possible. Loops back to expense and capitalism.
OTOH, someone with the cash to fund it could actually have cruelty free chocolate. 5x the current price is likely viable, but 100x seems unlikely.
But slaves are a lot cheaper and you gotta keep the shareholders happy.
Wow, lots of people in this thread trying to make sure we don’t blame capitalism for all the slavery being done at the behest of capitalists making products to sell in capitalist countries. You can’t blame all slavery on capitalism but you can blame a hell of a lot of it on capitalism.
Holy fuck, the “slave free” part is in quotes. It’s literally in quotes. Technically they are not slaves. They get paid a penny every quarter, and we beat them if they don work, but technically they can walk out and starve to death anytime the want.
As I grow older I see Willy Wonka more and more as a documentary about the working conditions in the Nestle supply chain
We’re all Oompa Loompas.
Slave free but made by American Child Labor™
As opposed to American Prison Labor, which is fine, as stated in the unchangeable constitution in the 13th amendment.
American desperate separated refugee child labour
Ftfy
See this is like if a restaurant put up a sign that said “We do NOT jack off into the claw chowder”
I didn’t think you were, but now that you specifically deny it, I’m suspicious.
More like ‘We do NOT “jack off” into the clam chowder’
Or when fruit juice explicitely has a vegan label on it. Uh, I would hope so.
Is that why it’s called Jack in the Box?
And that they make up a lower proportion of all humans than at any point in recorded human history.
It’s a big problem but it’s one that people are putting a lot of effort into solving.
Is penal slavery counted? Because if not, you can add about 5 million from the US alone.
I’m sure the people in slavery are really happy that slavery is at its lowest level per capita in recorded human history!
But yeah it is such a big problem we need a lot of effort in solving. It’s not like you just can’t enslave people or anything. Gosh I hope people come up with something eventually because I can’t think of one dang solution to this big ol problem.
I’m sure people in slavery are really happy with a random someone posting bullshit in an effort to undermine actual efforts to free them.
We’re like 5 comments deep in a Lemmy meme thread about a recycled webcomic and you think I’m undermining actual efforts to end slavery? You’re actually stupid lol. Please explain to me where the “actual effort” is so I can laugh at you more than I already am.
To clarify, a higher total number, not a higher per Capita/percentage. Also, while modern slavery is definitely terrible, it also is very different from how most people I think conceptualize slavery, like chattel slavery.
There are 7+ billion people on Earth as opposed to ~2 billion in 1960, so factor that in.
That is not what that article is saying. All of their data is on modern slavery, not all of recorded human history. 1 in 150 people equals 0.67%. If you take just the slaves in the US and the serfs in Russia in 1860 (~4m and ~27m respectively) against the estimated world population in 1860, that made up 2.25% of the population. This doesn’t include any other slaves in the rest of the world at the time.
So yes, modern slavery is increasing and is an important issue. No, there are not more slaves now than ever before.
The UN taskforce report clearly states that there are more slaves now than ever before. Personally, I don’t think that this is an issue that should be justified with ratios.
There are more people now than ever before. Using just the number is misleading which alienates people from caring about the issue and undermines the goal. Let’s say that in 1950 1 in 10 people died from cancer. That’s 250m people. If every year 250m died from cancer, and there was no change, that means with a current world population of 8b, the cancer death rate dropped from 10% to 3%. By looking at the raw number, it looks like nothing has changed, there has been no improvement. But looking at the percentage, we have cut cancer death rates by 70%. This is why ratios are important, it let’s you measure the progress. Are we doing better or worse? Raw numbers don’t tell you that.
The important part of the article is that modern slavery is rising, because the percentage of slaves is increasing, which tells me the problem is getting worse. But by telling me there are more slaves now than ever before, and a quick research session tells me that that’s not the whole story, suddenly I may not think there is an issue at all. And now people don’t care and the sensationalism that was used to get people to support resolutions and invest in change has had the opposite effect which means the problem will just continue to get worse.
Using numbers to quantify is scope of the problem isn’t justifying it.
At least they aren’t lying when saying “slave free” instead of regular slave free without the quotation marks.
They don’t put slaves into chocolate.
…yet
The flavor is in the suffering
Screw the meme. I’m just happy to see that this political meme. Is actually being posted in a community dedicated to political memes and not just being spammed on all the five main meme communites with five different variations of it each more unfunny
i dont find these funnythan the lastI post a lot, but I rarely post political stuff, because it’s usually not the kind of content I find funny or enjoyable. I figure I’m probably not alone in that.
On the rare occasion that I post a political meme, I always make a point to drop it in a community for people who have sought it out, like this one. Out of my 1.6k posts on Lemmy so far, I’d be surprised if I’ve posted here more than 10 times.
Honestly I’ve seen some of the stuff you post in lemmy shitpost and alot of it I think Is really funny
in my opinionkeep it up man 👍
Yeah, because slavery started with the invention of capitalism.
What if I told you the economic system has very little to do with it. If anything, free market + customer awareness (this is the most important piece) can help eliminate it, like shown here.
But the reason this is advertised is because the big names in chocolate use slavery, and while customers are aware of it, they don’t really care enough to change their spending habits. It’s common knowledge that our chocolate uses slaves, our phones and shoes use child labor, etc, but we don’t have the financial stability to alter our purchasing habits to avoid them, and honestly, most people don’t really care about harm coming to someone they don’t know in another county, so long as they’re still able to buy the products they want.
And it’s not just harm to others we can’t/don’t avoid - from tech, to food, to clothing, companies are charging more money for worse products, but we continue giving them record profits. In the end, the vast majority of consumers allow companies to do whatever they want; giving the companies less regulation and/or putting out even more documentaries to teach people about the atrocities they commit isn’t going to change those people’s behavior.
It unfortunately isn’t common knowledge. You’d be surprised at the sheer amount of people who aren’t aware of many things outside of their own neighborhood, much less in other countries.
I’m already too surprised by the amount of people who say things like “I ordered my phone last week, and it still isn’t here. There’s a kid in China who isn’t being whipped enough, haha!” for me to think that more people knowing would lead to more people caring.
Ths countries with slave labor that is used generally are not very capitalist.
But the companies exploiting the use of child and slave labor certainly are.
As are the people funding them.
Yes, which is why relying on consumer choice to keep the market in check is ineffective, and why we need real regulation that is antagonistic to the idea of a free market.
which is why relying on consumer choice to keep the market in check is ineffective
Why?
need real regulation that is antagonistic to the idea of a free market.
The “regulation” exists. Slavery is illegal in every country. The regulation is ineffective.
Because we’re the people funding them, so we can’t be trusted to actually stop giving our money to users of slave labor. But obviously ending slave labor is more important than eating cheap chocolate, so we need to find an alternate way to stop it. What other way could we use but to put a ban on anyone caught using slave labor, to the point where it’s finally enough to prevent it from happening?
If a “regulation” is just a fine that doesn’t outweigh the profits from the act it’s meant to be regulating, it’s not a regulation, it’s just the government taking a cut of the dirty profits. We need real regulations - forfeiting of all annual profits any year they were found to have used slave labor, for example.
Any company found to be profiting from dirty tactics needs to be swiftly hammered into the ground by every regulation we can throw at it. No product is worth the cost of human lives.
Yes, but the countries with other economic systems are ones that actually run the slavery. At least here a consumer has a say (if they care), and we also have regulations that can mandate things like that.
But a free market specifically focuses on the removal of regulations. And a lack of regulations is exactly why other countries are able to use slavery in the first place. Ultimately, these companies are are exploiting the free market of lower-income countries that can’t afford to regulate their businesses in order to maximize profits.
But a free market specifically focuses on the removal of regulations.
That’s capitalism, not a free market.
A free market requires regulation to keep it free, otherwise monopolies take over.
Capitalism is simply the focus on allowing businesses to gain and maintain capital, which is not directly tied to regulation, though you’re right in that it strongly incentivizes lack of regulation to truly maximize capital gain in spite of its negative impact on consumers. A free market specifically focuses on removing government intervention. Who do you think is meant to have the power to prevent a monopoly otherwise?
Capitalism is rule by whoever owns the most capital. Its not in the capitalists’ interests to allow a free market - competition is dangerous to whoever currently owns the most capital and gets to make the rules.
For a market to be free, it specifically requires enforcing anti-monopolist, pro-competitive regulation. Furthermore, the decision making efficiency of a free market is enhanced by regulation that allows individual decision makers to have something closer to perfect information.
The idea that deregulation leads to a free market is capitalist propaganda that only benefits the billionaires.
That’s just flat-out wrong. I got this from Wikipedia, since it explains the concept in a pretty easy-to-understand way:
“(Free) markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations.”
Free markets remove all corporate regulations, and allow for companies to do whatever they want, including using predatory pricing against the competition to run them out of business and create a monopoly, or price fixing, working together with competition to ensure they both get inflated profits at the expense of the consumers. Any regulation that currently keeps companies in check, however poorly it works, would be completely removed if a free market is adopted.
free market capitalism benefits hugely from slavery. No wages to pay, no workers benefits, etc. and no matter how aware people are, as long as they can get their products, they won’t care about how they are made.
Yes because the slave labor in China no one is making any money from that at all.
So… we agree? capitalist economies and corporations are using slavery and nobody is doing anything about it
Tell me again how china is mainly a capitalist society…
Sure, the private sector comprises the biggest part of the economy, megacorporations are also private and billionaires are numeorus. The economy surely isn’t on the hands of the workers.
And even if it wasn’t, private corporations from other countries (including the US) operate inside the country and contribute to modern slavery.
I don’t think the problem highlighted by this post is slavery itself. But the fact they are advertising slave free chocolate like it’s a good thing or something to be proud of. When it’s in fact the minimum in a civilised society, but still most of the chocolate manufacturers have slave forces somewhere along their chain supply.
Not unique to capitalism, unfortunately. Simply a result of people being more aware of where our supply chains originate from - and what horrific conditions people toil under there.
Greatly exacerbated by capitalism, to the point that it’s fair to say it’s caused by capitalism
Also, capitalism makes us less cognizant of our supply chain, not more
Greatly exacerbated by capitalism
… is it? How so?
Also, capitalism makes us less cognizant of our supply chain, not more
How do you figure that?
It really begs the question that if our capitalism depends on slave economies, is it really capitalism?
It really begs the question that if our capitalism depends on slave economies, is it really capitalism?
Of course it is. What kind of question is that?
I’ve shared this data so many times that I’m practically working for the UN! Anyway, there are more slaves now than there have ever been in recorded human history.
There are also more people than in recorded human history. The percentage of people who are slaves is considerably lower, and the definition for slaves is considerably broader.
It really begs the question that if our capitalism depends on slave economies, is it really capitalism?
Slavery reduces the efficiency of capitalism, which is reliant on a strong consumer class, but is not outright incompatible, unfortunately.
The UN taskforce report clearly states that there are more slaves now than ever before. Personally, I feel that this is not issue that can be reconciled with ratios and percentages.
Capitalism is inhumane. The profit margin somehow justifies the human cost. We have the technology to create an equitable and prosperous system for everyone. It’s possible if we all confront our habits of reckless consumption and greed.
The UN taskforce report clearly states that there are more slaves now than ever before.
His comment clearly doesn’t go against that. He specifically states that that statistic arises from the fact that there are far more people alive today than ever before and the percentage (he also bolded that word) of slaves is lower than in the past.
Capitalism is inhumane. The profit margin somehow justifies the human cost.
There is no manifesto of capitalism which states that profit margins justify human suffering. Nearly all capitalist countries ban slavery altogether, while some few have it de jure banned but de facto legal (at least in some cases), and I don’t know of any that have it fully legalized but I’m sure they exist.
In the end, slavery isn’t caused by capitalism; slavery had been a thing for millennia under various controlled markets, state or otherwise. With how prevalent it has been since the dawn of time one could only conclude that it’s human nature that will exist under any economic model and must be constantly fought against with every tool we have.
For example of other modern economic models that have benefitted from slave labor you can look at the USSR, that had obligatory labor written right into their constitution from the very beginning. On top of obligatory labor they forced 14+ million people into forced labor via the gulag system from the 30s to 50s. Most people think that the gulags were primarily to control political dissent, but released soviet documents from the time period shows that they were specifically devised by Gosplan for slave labor.
It’s good they’re trying vaguely at least 🤷.
I don’t think this is capitalism exactly. The Chinese and Russians certainly do their own forms of slavery (fishing boats, gulags etc).
There’s more slaves in the world now than at any prior time. Lack of education (kids not in school too), poverty and wild birth rates are probably the biggest factors here, particularly in Africa.
The west can exert a lot of pressure here for good:
- Subsidized education requirements for export countries (or import levies)
- Break up chocolate monopolies
- Living minimum wages
- Independent monitoring
- Practical health programs
The US engages in domestic slavery too.
The 13th amendment has a very convenient loophole:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It is one of the many reasons, perhaps the largest reason why African Americans are incarcerated at 6 times the rate of White Americans, on a national average.
Yet people still don’t believe systemic racism exists.
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jesus christ, some of you seem to be unaware that current Russia is very capitalistic Also, as someone from a third world country, the west is not interested in any of that
I literally just watched a John Oliver thing about chocolate where he pointed out that label (and two others) don’t even really check that they are, in fact, slave/child/cruelty free.
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I have to wonder what the ratio is for us transferring our bad practices to other parts of the world, to the other parts of the world playing catch up to us in the terms of the industrial revolution which saw us practice many of these same things early on.
I think of the coal mine workers in the 1600s in England and later on in the Americas. They were horrible situations to endure and that’s one *small example. Most of early life of those moving from the rural areas to the city was not kind either. Child labor was a big part of the equation along with slavery.
I’m sure there’s also a large part of the western world just transferring their bad for the local environment processes to these places too. I just wonder what the ratio is.
I have to wonder what the ratio is for us transferring our bad practices to other parts of the world, to the other parts of the world playing catch up to us in the terms of the industrial revolution which saw us practice many of these same things early on.
Or the continuation of long-standing practices in these regions. Slavery, after all, long predates the Industrial Revolution. We’re more responsible for encouraging the continuation than transferring the practice.
I’m sure there’s also a large part of the western world just transferring their bad for the local environment processes to these places too. I just wonder what the ratio is.
A lot of it is that we’re willing to pay profitable prices for raw materials, which encourages dependence on primary sector activities (extraction, like agriculture and mining) which are labor intensive and very vulnerable to exploitation. A lot of these slave-labor type undertakings work in a pretty machinery-minimal way, since that’s how the value of slave labor is maximized, rather than being advanced-but-polluting.
